News
Local

There is a simple reason that Liberal Joe Cormier wants to be elected MP for Nickel Belt, he says.

"I can make a difference for Nickel Belt," the candidate said Tuesday in an editorial board meeting with The Sudbury Star.

Cormier said he learned how ordinary people can help each other when he was growing up in Iroquois Falls as one of 12 children born to a miner and his wife.

He recalls people dropping off a food basket to his family when his father was on strike for eight months when Cormier was a child -- and how the generous donors left a second basket because the Cormier family was so large.

"That was where I first saw that people can help other people," said Cormier, accompanied by wife, Monique, who is managing his campaign.

Politics is a family affair for Cormier and Monique, who met while Monique was working in the office of former Nickel Belt Liberal MP Ray Bonin.

Cormier said he has been a Liberal since the days of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, crediting the party and PET for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its "equality for everyone" philosophy.

On his way to running for the party, Cormier worked 13 years for Kidd Creek Mine in Timmins before moving to Sturgeon Falls and starting his own radio broadcasting company, JOCO Communications Inc., in 2003.

Cormier recently sold the Sturgeon Falls station and second one in Espanola to Moose FM.

"They said it wouldn't work," said Cormier of his radio station that broadcast good news only, including weather and marine information, and promoted local artists.

Cormier calls Nickel Belt "the most beautiful place in the world if you ask me. There are a lot of people with a lot of dreams here."

Whether they live in highly populated areas or on farms, people want the same thing -- a good job and a good life spent in the outdoors at activities they love such as fishing, hunting and riding their all-terrain vehicles.

"They're not complicated, but the riding is big," said Cormier, and its population diverse.

His varied background qualifies him to represent their interests in the House of Commons, he said.

Cormier has visited every community in the riding and asked people what is important to them in this campaign.

Pensions are a hot topic, especially to low-income earners, so the Liberals' promise to invest $700 million more in the Canada Pension Plan is welcome to people in the riding.

People are also interested in being able to invest more of their own earnings in the CPP.

When asked what the riding of Nickel Belt needs, Cormier said: "Somebody to bring people together."

He favours amending the Investment Canada Act to make sales of Canadian resources to foreign countries more transparent.

He also favours laws that would prohibit the hiring of replacement workers during labour disputes.

Tax breaks for corporations are fine when the federal government is running a surplus, but not when the country is in a deficit as it is under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives, he said.